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'The eyes of the world were focused

'on this little island
in the Caribbean Sea.'

'Although Fidel Castro
is not officially a communist...'

'Fidel Castro, the bearded opportunist,

'has betrayed his own country.

'For America,
there is danger on the doorstep.'

This is a murder story.

The victim,
Fidel Castro, the president of Cuba.

Castro never was assassinated.

This time he just tripped over a step.

But more people have tried to murder

the world's most famous socialist,
than any man alive.

Governments and gunmen have been
trying to get Castro for 50 long years,

but time is nearly up.

The men who tried to kill Castro
have spent decades in the shadows.

Now, they've come forward
to reveal their secrets.

Who are these men -
heroes or villains?

What made them hate
Castro enough to want him dead?

On a trip to New York in 1959,
even the cops fell in love with him.

And he didn't just hand out
Cuban cigars -

he promised his own people
free health and education

and the dream of equality.

You'd think people would want
to copy him, not kill him.

'Hello, everyone.'

We'd like to share our trips with you
and tonight we'll all be going to Cuba.

Cuba lies just off the coast of Florida.

'Many American
political leaders still have this idea

that Cuba, rightfully, should
almost be a part of our dominion -

they should do
what we want them to do, '

and that if it weren't for Castro,
they probably would.

So, Castro has come to be seen

as this nettlesome figure
we simply can't deal with,

who has defied us and jeered at us for
almost 50 years and got away with it!

Nothing can drive a superpower
up the wall faster than that.

When Fidel Castro seized power in
1959, ordinary Cubans were ecstatic.

He'd seen off a corrupt regime
which had bled the country dry

for the benefit of American business
and a rich ruling elite.

When a dove landed on his shoulder,
it looked like divine approval,

but not everyone felt blessed.

'Most of my family were elated
when Castro took over, '

as were most of the Cuban people.

Now, I remember,
I was not ten years old,

when I saw on television, a trial,

the first early trials
of the revolution.

'And as the trial was going on,

'as they were going to process this man
for an execution against a firing squad,

'which was later televised, '

there were vendors
walking around in the audience

selling candy and soft drinks.

'I was nine years old and I said,
"Wow, this is not right."'

Like hundreds of thousands
of middle-class Cubans,

Enrique Encinosa's family fled Castro's
revolution for the safety of Miami.

'Still they come,
nearly 200 Cuban refugees a day,

'five days a week.

'They arrive with little more
than the clothes on their back.

'Their cash, houses, land, furniture

'have long since been signed over
to the Cuban government.'

Castro's exiles
are now pillars of Miami society.

Their bitterness has grown with every
year Castro has stayed in power.

'The majority
of the Cuban exile community

'supports any kind of strategy
that will overthrow Castro.'

If you're eliminating a head of state,
you know, who is a dictator,

who has been oppressing his people,
I think that's totally justified.

'I myself support anybody
who tries to kill Fidel Castro,

'because I think it would do
humanity a favour.

'If the opportunity comes to harm him
through violent means,

'I would gladly do so.
I would consider it my duty.'

Castro's would-be assassins
are ready to confess.

Step forward suspect one -
name: Enrique O'Varez,

Architect,
motivation: betrayal.

Fidel's student friend, and one
of the first to try to take his life.

Here.

O'Varez became so disillusioned with
Castro that he felt compelled to act.

Just after the revolution, Castro
could still be seen on Havana's streets,

unconcerned and unprotected.

O'Varez was going to gun him down
in broad daylight.

It sounded simple, but killing a man
for the first time is never simple.

'I don't pretend to know
what goes through a man's mind

'in a situation like this, you know, '

because I think we are all different
and a man might do something today

that he might not have the
mentality to do six months from now,

because human beings
are psychologically fragile.

'But I would say that a man
who puts himself in a situation

'where he actually
goes out on the field

'and actually puts himself within grasp,

'he should be committed to do,
you know, what he set out to do.

'I don't think it's being,
from my own perspective,

'I wouldn't see any excuse for that.'

You're there and...

'Nobody hired you to do this.

'This is something
that you volunteered to do.

'This is something that
before you went into,

'you were totally aware
of the circumstances,

'so you should be willing
to take it to the last... level.

'And if you don't, then you've failed.'

It'd be very hard for a man
to live with himself after that.

O'Varez hesitated
and it cost him his one shot.

Castro's agents were onto him
and he was thrown in jail.

This was
our first suspect's final confession.

Two months later, Enrique O'Varez,

who was ill with cancer,
did take a life - his own.

'Now back to Edward R Murro.'

Just 30 days ago,
Fidel Castro entered Havana

to be greeted by cheering mobs

as one of the greatest heroes
in Cuba's history.

A few hours ago
he returned to his apartment

on the 23rd floor of the Havana Hilton
Hotel in the centre of the city.

- Good evening, Fidel Castro.
- 'Good evening.'

You must have had a very busy week,
how do you feel?

'Well, I feel, really feel well,
supposing tired.

'You know we have to work
very much, work very much.'

What about your personal safety?

This is something you must think about,
or doesn't that worry you?

'Really, what I think is that I have
no time to think of my personal safety.'

Is it true that you go
wandering about the streets

occasionally all by yourself?

'Yes, of course.
I like to be alone most of time.

'My friends don't like
and sometime they come with me.

'But really I don't like
to be with personal guard.'

Wasn't Fidelito
supposed to be with us tonight?

'Come, Fidelito.'

- Hello, Fidel junior.
- 'Hi.'

That's a good-looking puppy
you have there. Is he yours?

'No, somebody gave it
to my father for a present.'

But America's curiosity
with Castro's revolution couldn't last.

When Castro seized US-owned
businesses for the Cuban people,

he revealed his true colour - red.

And in '50s America,
what could be worse

than a communist takeover
on the doorstep?'

'Castro is a convinced,
dedicated egalitarian.'

He hates any system
that provides a class society,

where one group of people
live much better than others.

'He didn't expect the United States
would sit on its hands

'and watch him do that.
Some conflict was inevitable.'

Get your gun out.
There.

And so began America's
secret war against Cuba -

covert operations
fought by nameless men,

sometimes on the order of presidents,

never with the knowledge
of the American people.

Get him!

Christmas 1959.

The CIA gets the go-ahead
for the big hit on "The Beard ".

The problem is that upright countries
like the United States

are not meant to murder
foreign leaders.

It is, after all, illegal.

So the agency's great challenge
is to dream up plans

that can never be traced
to the White House.

They devise ingenious plots
to destroy Castro's charisma.

Seizing on the potent symbolism of his
rebel beard, they plot to make it fall out.

The plan is to steal into Castro's hotel

and put a special powder
into his boots.

The trial run is successful but at the
last minute, their agents get cold feet.

They plot to spray a TV station
with an LSD-type drug

to make Castro freak out on air.

There's no shortage of LSD at the CIA

but they decide the plan
is just too far out.

If America's favourite astronaut,
John Glenn, gets lost in space,

they plan to blame Castro for zapping
his module with magnetic rays.

The plan fails when the rocket man
lands safely back on planet earth. '

Then brilliant minds
are turned to murder.

Castro is a keen diver,

so the CIA wraps him a special gift -
a poisoned diving suit.

But Castro doesn't want a new suit,
he's just been given one.

So, they try to booby trap
a colourful seashell with dynamite

and place it where Castro
likes to dive.

The CIA acquire two books
on Caribbean molluscs

but it just can't find a shell
big enough to do the job.

Next, they rig a poisoned syringe
inside a fountain pen,

but they decide they just won't get
away with scratching "The Beard ".

Most famously,
they really do plot to kill Castro

by doctoring his favourite cigars.

Plan A is poison.

Plan B, explosives.

All these assassination attempts,

we're not supposed to be involved
in assassination attempts

against foreign leaders.

I know we have been,
but we shouldn't be.

This is a mistake. It's a mistake.

Over in Cuba,
Castro's secret agents

were just as dedicated
to keeping him alive.

One of the finest
was Fabian Escalante.

His exploits were even turned
into a hit thriller on Cuban TV.

As one assassination attempt
after another was foiled,

Escalante rose to become
head of Cuban intelligence.

He's retired now and has time to reflect

on all the plots ever discovered
by his agents.

One further adjustment makes it 638.

Escalante has even calculated
just how many plots

fell under each
United States presidency.

Escalante was keen to substantiate

each and every one
of the plots he's counted.

He had eyes everywhere...

...and men on the inside
of the conspiracies

that threatened Castro's revolution.

In Havana itself, you couldn't
light a cigar without him knowing.

There was a grenade attack
planned at a baseball game.

Snipers zeroed in
on the university steps.

He knew their plans
down to the last detail.

There was a radio-controlled plane
packed with explosives

to be launched
from the National Library.

Assassins tried to serve Castro
a poisoned milkshake

at the Havana Hilton.

They planned to ambush
the presidential convoy

on its way to the airport.

But Fabian and his spies
stopped all of them.

For many years, there was one hated
adversary who, for Fabian Escalante,

stood above anyone else.

He considered him
the greatest threat to Fidel Castro.

In real life,
Escalante never did get his man.

Step forward suspect number two -
Antonio Veciana.

Qualified in accountancy,
recruited by the CIA.

Now, gone fishing just off Miami beach.

The former CIA man,
who once ran guns to Cuba,

now runs nothing more
than a chain of marine stores in Miami.

'He is like a soccer player with
cold blood shooting a penalty shot.'

I mean, he can stand there
and he won't budge,

and he will do whatever,
what he thinks is right.

He's a very determined man?

He sure is,
and I'm very proud being his son.

The bazooka was ready to fire.
Castro was a sitting duck.

This time, his spies knew nothing.

Stung by failure, the CIA gambled

on an astonishing
new partner in crime - the Mafia.

Before the revolution, organised crime
ran Havana and they made millions.

Castro ruined their party
and threw them out.

So, they had a motive
and they had the means.

Murder being all in a day's work
for a mobster. '

The agency had to keep
their distance from the mob.

Step forward suspect number three -
the go-between.

Bob Maheu, ex-FBI,
a man with the Mafia's number.

The Mafia had a plausible reason
for wanting to get back in Cuba,

'which gives
the United States government

'a possibility of denying it,
whatever happened.'

'You know,
there are those who will disbelieve

'what I am about to say,

'but my immediate problem was that
I happen to be a Roman Catholic.'

I don't profess to be the Pope,

I don't profess
that I have a free trip to heaven,

but I'm a reasonably good Catholic
and believe in it, I'm Jesuit-trained

and I had a morality problem
with the murder of a...

'...of any person, which included, of
course, the leader of a foreign country.'

I remember very vividly what I did.

'I mean,
I went down to my recreation room,

'I put on some Strauss,
on a very low sound

'and I just sat there
and I tried to experience

'what would happen
if something went wrong.'

But... I was asked to do it
by my government,

and that, I guess,
was the prevailing thing.

I mean, I figured, "Well,
who the hell am I to worry about me?"

'You'll have to understand that
espionage is a very dirty business.'

It's a dirty business.

If this was the way to save one
American life, it was a good way to go.

Bob Maheu meets Mafia bosses
to hammer out the details.

The CIA want the mob to march
up to Castro and just mow him down,

but even gangsters aren't that crazy.

So, it's the Mafia who come up
with an alternative - poison pills.

Agency scientists
decide deadly botulinum

is a perfect poison for "The Beard ".

They were plastic,
just a little bitty capsule, very small.

'You could not taste it,
you could not smell it.'

If that pill was dropped in liquid,
hot or cold,

they would instantaneously dissolve

and leave no after-effect,
as to smell or taste or anything.

Having invented a lethal pill,

the CIA now has
to get Castro to swallow it.

Someone has to get close to him.

His hideaway at the Hilton Hotel
is heavily guarded,

but maybe "The Beard"
does have a weakness after all.

'This city is always noisy,
loquacious and smiling,

'and so it sometime appears a little
frivolous and carefree, like a pretty girl.

'But that is only at first glance.

'It's a city that can show
Spartan courage

'and the pretty girls, it seems,
aren't really so frivolous at all.'

Castro's divorced
and has been having an affair

with a young German girl.

Marita Lorenz had loved Castro
and his revolution,

but their relationship has gone sour.

The CIA persuades her
to try and kill her ex-lover.

She hasn't seen Castro for months,
but she's kept her old room key

and steals into his suite with the poison
pills hidden in a jar of face cream.

'As Marita told me the story,
the first time I heard it was from her,

'she'd put the pills
in her cold cream jar,

'and so when she went to get them out,
they had somehow melted,

'and so she felt,
"OK, it won't work, forget it."'

Castro had asked her when she came
back if she had come back to kill him

and she said, "Yes, Fidel," she had.

And so he handed her his pistol.

He was stretched out on the bed,
fully clothed and handed her the pistol

'and said, "Well then, do it."

'And she said she held
the pistol pointed at him'

for a minute and then she put it down,

and said, "I can't, Fidel", and he said,
"Of course you can't, no-one can."

Now desperate to dislodge Castro,

the CIA hatched
its most brazen scheme.

It all began here.

On President Eisenhower's order,

they planned not only to kill Castro,
but mount an invasion of Cuba.

In 1960, Miami Zoo
was a secret training camp.

The world could never know
that the American government

was turning thousands
of Cuban exiles into a fighting force

capable of deposing Castro's regime.

When they landed on Cuban soil
at the Bay of Pigs,

it was meant to look like they planned
the invasion all by themselves.

Howard Hunt
was one of the CIA's top men. '

We were heavily involved
at the recruitment,

and the infiltration of it.
The people that we recruited

wanted to go in by parachute or by sea

and get rid of the devil, Mr Castro.

'Castro was such a charismatic leader

'that there were just
no possible antidote to him'

that would not have meant...
US overt involvement,

and that, of course, was what the United
States government wanted to avoid.

And, of course, Eisenhower wanted
the American hand totally concealed

and I think the Agency
learned a big lesson from that -

that you can't... do both.

You can't succeed and you can't keep
the American hand invisible.

Was part of the plan
to kill Fidel Castro?

- To do what?
- To kill Fidel Castro?

Well, those are not...
That word 'kill', the verb 'kill',

is not easily used
in government communications.

I myself felt that
that was the ultimate solution

because if you had him,
you had a caged tiger,

and... but we never got that far.

'These are anxious days for Cuba.

'The threat of armed aggression
hangs over the little island.

'At any minute
the order may be given from there

'and hordes of mercenaries

trained by the Imperialists
will move on the island.'

The big day came in April 1961.

Castro crushed the invasion in hours.

Despite their efforts, the role
of America was plain for all to see.

The plan had been
hatched by Eisenhower,

but it was executed by Kennedy.

For America's idealistic young
president, it was all very embarrassing,

but even that didn't deter JFK.

He kept on pushing the CIA
to get rid of Castro,

until, in an irony lost on many,
he got assassinated himself.

Fidel Castro and his right hand man,
Che Guevara,

might have thought
they would finally be left in peace,

free to cut cane
and build the Cuban socialist dream

without having to worry
quite so much

about being assassinated
the whole time.

But Che, the revolutionary pin-up,
was soon off around Latin America

preaching communism Cuban-style
until his luck ran out.

Step forward suspect number four -
Felix Rodriguez.

A born fighter, he fled Cuba
and signed up as a CIA sniper.

One thing made him a big hit
with America's first family -

he tried to kill Fidel three times.

President Bush, the father.

That was when he was vice president
at the White House.

"To Felix Rodriguez, with high esteem
and admiration, George Bush."

Let's see.

This is from President Bush,

and this time...

it's... with his brother Jeb,
now governor of Florida.

And that's another photo
of you and President Bush behind you?

Yes. We were talking over the times
about the Che Guevara story,

so I told him,
the last moment of Che Guevara

and then everybody that I go to,
it's always very interesting

knowing the character of Che Guevara,
what he said at the last minute,

what was the conversation was
between the two of us.

We talked a lot about that.

This is one
with Che Guevara in Bolivia.

Are you in that photo, Felix?

Yeah, this is me right here
and that's Che here.

And that's actually
the last picture of Che alive.

'There seems absolutely
no doubt that this is Che Guevara.

'Yes, they're now sitting Che Guevara
up, actually sitting him up.

'His dead body has now been sat up.

'It's the most fantastic sight, he's a
very pale ghastly, ghostly yellow colour.

'Now his head has rolled back onto the
stretcher on which he was brought in.

'His eyes are still open, the balls
of his eyes sticking out at you.

'Now they're lifting his head
up by his long hair...'

Rodriguez personally gave
the order to execute Che Guevara.

I said, "Is there anything
I can say to your family?",

and Che said, "Tell my wife
to remarry and try to be happy."

Those were his last words.

Then he came to me and he shook
my hand and I shook his hand,

we embraced
and then he stood back in attention,

thinking I was going to shoot him,
so I left the room.

There was a sergeant
taking care of those matters

and I told him it's order from your
command to eliminate the prisoner.

Shoot him from here down,
because this man

is supposed to die from combat wound.

He said, "Si, mi capitan."
So I left the room,

I went to an advanced post
and I was taking notes.

It was one o'clock when
I left the room there, Bolivian time.

About ten past one,
that's when we heard the bursts.

The CIA's achievement
was to make Che Guevara

a martyr for his cause,
celebrated by millions to this day.

By the late '60s, Castro was not only
still alive, he was thriving, still popular

and managing Cuban socialism
virtually single-handed. '

'Castro insists on becoming an expert
in every agricultural science.

'At this cattle insemination ranch,

'he personally instructs a man
on how to test a bull.'

'I pay a great deal of attention
to agriculture

'and in order to be able to direct
activity in agriculture,

'I've had to bring together
much information about it,

'and that information can only be got
by going out into the countryside.'

At home,
Castro's spies kept him safe.

Whenever he left the country,
he was a much easier target.

In 1971, the CIA teamed up once more
with the accountant, Antonio Veciana.

'They planned to kill Castro
on a visit to Chile.

'My father was
stationed at the United States embassy

'in La Paz, Bolivia,
and we decided to go on a vacation.'

'The journey
to adventure is so simple now.

'We went from La Paz, Bolivia

'in through the Lake Titicaca,
which is the highest lake in the world.

'Then we travelled
all the way to Santiago, Chile.'

During that trip
that I thought was a vacation,

my father did just something
that was phenomenal.

'I'm sure my mum knew. My father
didn't keep anything away from my mum,

'and a friend came with us
that I later found out

'was the fella who was
to have done the shooting.'

Antonio Veciana devises
a new way to kill Castro -

conceal a gun inside a film camera

and obtain fake press passes
for his two gunmen.

His intelligence is spot on.

Castro arrives to face the press.

Veciana thinks his men are right there,

just feet away from "The Beard ",
guns loaded. '

'It was a specific day.

'He was sitting there and
he kept pacing in front of the phone.'

'So I walked up and said,
"Dad, what's the matter?"

'He goes "No, no, son, I'm just
waiting for an important phone call."

What was really interesting
was that my father

was very upset
when he got that phone call.

I've never seen him
that upset and stuff.

I didn't know that obviously
it's because the guy

cancelled the assassination attempt.

'I later found out
that he'd said something,

'that he'd got an appendicitis.

'I don't believe that. I think he got
a little scared under the hood.'

I told something to my dad
that if things are fine,

I told my dad
"You should have hired an Arab.

"Those guys are not scared of anything.

"They're willing to give their life
if they have to."

In the 1970s,
events took a darker turn.

Frustrated by their failure
to eliminate Castro,

hardliners sought
new targets for their venom.

They turned on their own community,

ruthlessly silencing Miami Cubans
who dared to talk of peace.

There were efforts against the lives
of people, Cubans especially,

who thought it was time
to begin a dialogue with Cuba.

'The hardliners didn't like that
and so the reaction

'was to try to blow them up
or shoot them.

'And I suppose you could say,
no wonder, '

given that these hard-line exiles
had been trained by the CIA,

they'd been involved
in sabotage raids against Cuba,

some of them in
assassination attempts and so forth.

This was the way they operated.

Step forward suspect
number five - Dr Orlando Bosch.

A reckless hardliner
who hated Castro so much

he abandoned his career
in paediatric medicine for terrorism.

He's linked to at least 50 bombings.

In 1967, he fired a bazooka
at a ship in Miami harbour

simply because
it was on its way to Havana.

He even threatened
a British prime minister

because he was too soft on Cuba.

One woman's followed his tracks -
writer and journalist, Ann Bardach.

Orlando Bosch is a convicted terrorist
if, for nothing else,

the shooting here in Miami harbour
of the Polish ship, which he admits to.

But he also talks about dozens
and dozens of other militant strikes

and his lifetime quest
to kill Fidel Castro.

What happened next will never be
forgotten or forgiven by Cuban people.

In October 1976, Orlando Bosch
became Cuba's most wanted man.

'Cubana 455, please push back.'

'There was 73 passengers on the plane.

'It picked up passengers in Guyana,

'then it stopped in Barbados
and they had to refuel.'

And then apparently at that time
two of the men boarded the plane.

They went into the...
the toilets of the plane

and put, planted the bombs in there,
in the plane,

and as soon as the plane,
the jet took off,

I think it was what,
eleven minutes, eleven seconds?

Six minutes.

'Six minutes later,
I mean a few minutes later,

'it just blew up
over the Barbadian Ocean.'

At the time we had a cousin,
she woke us up

and she kept saying to all of us,
"You need to sit down."

I remember hearing her
say to my mother,

"Please, sit down, sit down".

She said "The plane that Raymond
was on..." I remember she kept saying,

"I think, I think the plane
that Raymond was on went down."

And my mother screamed.

Because we can assume
what happens next -

that there will be no survivors.

The wreckage fell near Barbados.

There were no survivors.

There had been 73 passengers
and crew on board.

Amongst them, the 24 members
of the Cuban national fencing team.

Many were teenagers.

Two men were convicted
in Venezuela of placing the bombs,

but the suspected masterminds
remained elusive.

CIA documents reveal
that days before the bombing,

an associate of Orlando Bosch
was overheard saying,

"We're going to hit a Cuban airplane,
Orlando has the details."

Bosch was detained for the crime
in Venezuela but was never convicted.

In 1989, Bosch emerged
back in the United States.

He was arrested,
but only for a parole violation.

The anti-Castro cause meant votes

and Miami Republicans campaigned
for his freedom.

He became the cornerstone
of the campaign

by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
for her run for the US Congress.

The campaign
became "Free Orlando Bosch".

Her campaign manager was a young
ambitious politician named Jeb Bush,

'and Jeb Bush's father was the
vice-president of the United States,

'and then was the president
of the United States.'

Mr President,
it is an honour and a thrill

that you have come to Miami
on behalf of my campaign.

I'm extremely grateful

for all of your support
and encouragement in the past weeks.

'And despite protests
from the US justice department,

'particularly from Bush's own
Attorney-General, '

saying that this is one of the worst
terrorists operating in our hemisphere,

that we under no circumstances
should allow him to remain here...

...President George Bush overruled them
all at the request of his son

and granted residency
to Orlando Bosch.

'He had spent the past 13 years

'in Venezuelan and American prisons.

'Bosch's relatives say he just wants
to spend time with his family.

'The Justice Department
has tried to deport Bosch as a terrorist

'but 31 countries refused to take him.'

Orlando Bosch settled down
with his family in Miami.

He's a keen landscape painter

who depicts Cuban scenes
remembered from his youth.

Orlando, the good man!

'This really upset a lot of people,

'because it turned out that most of
the people on this plane were civilians.

'There really is no evidence'

that these were very, very
important high-level Cuban officials

on the plane, or military officials.

'Castro plays David
to our Goliath beautifully,

'and we give him an opportunity,
almost on a weekly basis.

'We do something which allows him
to put the blame on us.'

We're unable to deal... rationally
with Cuba.

After the plane bomb America
and Cuba did, for once, get talking.

In '79, President Jimmy Carter even
invited Castro to visit the States. '

'Last time Castro
made this journey,

'it was shortly after the revolution
that brought him to power.

'Nothing that's happened since has made
the visit less of a security risk for him,

'and on the plane coming over
he was asked

'if he was wearing a bullet-proof vest.'

No.

But there was a plot to kill Castro

just after he touched down
on American soil.

I have a moral one, a moral vest.

Tomorrow, when he makes his speech,
the United Nations will allow no visitors.

Instead of the usual sequence of
national leaders coming to the podium,

Fidel Castro will have
the session all to himself -

a sensible precaution,
since last time he was here in 1960,

he went on for four hours
and 29 minutes.

The hatred still burned
in one of Castro's oldest enemies.

Antonio Veciana
plotted to hide plastic explosives

inside a softball
and throw it at Castro's car.

But Fabian Escalante's
undercover agents

were already on the case.

There was another man accused

of the Cuban airline bombing in 1976,
though he denies it.

Step forward suspect number six -
Luis Posada Carriles.

His life's ambition -
to kill the communist Castro.

In the '50s, Havana University trained
Posada in chemistry and engineering.

In the '60s, America trained him
in sabotage and explosives.

Writer Ann Bardach met him
when he was on the run.

'Posada came out, an elderly man, '

kind of silver grey hair,
a real gentleman, took my bags.

He had a van waiting outside.

He had a gravelly crushed voice,
a lot of charm,

'a lot of self-confidence -
a big, big ladies' man.'

He gets involved from Bay of Pigs.

Bay of Pigs is the jumping off point
for Luis Posada,

and he had a lot of advantages

because he had previously worked
as an exterminator.

That was the first career
of Luis Posada.

Something I find a bit curious
about Luis Posada

is he did his degrees
in chemical engineering,

'so he was the one
with the real background in explosives.'

During his many years behind bars,
he discovered a talent for acrylics.

Posada's paintings
sell like hotcakes in Miami

and the proceeds
fund his struggle against Castro.

His friend, Enrique Encinosa
and his wife, help out with the sales.

What I love about this is you can see
the little moss growing from the walls,

and again the shadows coming off
from the insides of the castle.

Luis is very good at shadows.

This painting is of Oriente Province,

and to me it's one of the best works
done by Luis Posada Carriles.

You will observe he has
excellent depth in the street,

tremendous use of shadows.

I think you're dealing here
with a sensitive man.

I know it might be hard for some people
in your audience to understand

that a guy who's spent
all his life doing war,

and that has been accused
of almost everything

by one government or the other,

and who has lived in hiding for so many
years would be sensitive, but he is.

In 1997, seven bombs tore
apart Havana's hotels.

The aim - to warn European
tourists away from Cuba

and bring Castro's economy
to its knees.

One young Italian traveller,
named Fabian Di Celmo,

was killed in the blasts.

Cuba's security men
did catch the bomber,

but it was clear
he wasn't the man in charge.

A year later,
Posada spoke to the press

and couldn't help letting slip
that he was the mastermind.

Another thing
that goes on the charge sheet

is the bombings in Havana in 1997.

OK, since... OK... the fact of it is

that it has never been proven he did it,
he has never been indicted for it.

So. from a strictly legal viewpoint,

I personally think
it's an acceptable method.

It's a way of damaging
the tourist economy.

The message
that one tries to get across

is that Cuba
is not a healthy place for tourists.

So, if Cuba
is not a healthy place for tourists,

because there's a few windows
been blown out of hotels, that's fine.

It's the year 2000.

Cuban agents are in Panama
to protect Castro on a visit.

Under close surveillance, is a group
of Castro's oldest adversaries.

'Luis Posada was there
with Gaspar Hermanes,

'Pedro Ramon and Guillermo Novo.

'They were there to try
to assassinate Fidel Castro, '

there can be no doubt about that.

They also had been infiltrated.

Probably by one of their own,
probably by one of their confidants,

and Cuban intelligence
certainly knew what they were up to.

They are exceptionally good.

The plot, the 638th
and last in Escalante's list,

was to take Castro out with a bang

by putting a huge bomb
underneath his podium.

When it was foiled,
Castro revelled in the victory.

Prosecutors amassed
a compelling case against Posada.

Finally, in April 2004,

Panama's Supreme Court sentenced
him and his associates to prison.

But four months later he was out again.

Mysteriously,
Posada received a pardon

from Panama's outgoing president.

A year later, in 2005, Luis Posada
slipped undetected into Miami itself.

For months he lived a normal life.
The authorities let him be.

Posada was so relaxed
he even held a press conference

to tell his side of
the plane bomb story.

He slurs his words
because he was shot in the mouth

while he was on the run.

I was shocked, sure.
I mean shocked, yeah.

Yeah, that there he is
now hanging out in Miami

asking for political asylum.
Shocked, yeah, just like a terrorist.

George Bush says
that anyone who gives refuge

or shelters a terrorist is a terrorist.

Well then, that makes George Bush
himself a terrorist.

'He certainly is sheltering,
at this point, Luis Posada Carriles,

'and his father allowed
Orlando Bosch a safe conduct

'so that he could remain in Miami.'

If anybody harbours a terrorist,
they're a terrorist.

If they fund a terrorist,
they're a terrorist.

If they house terrorists,
they're terrorists.

I can't make it any more clearly
to other nations.

And that's what they are.

Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles
are... terrorists.

I mean, no other definition fits.

All this might not matter too much

if all Miami's assorted terrorists
and assassins

were in retirement, but they aren't.

We went to see a man
who got arrested

for possessing a Stinger missile
he wanted to use to kill Fidel Castro.

Step forward our final suspect -
Rodolfo Frometa,

electrician and guerrilla.

Frometa and his men
live out their dream

most weekends in the Everglades.

They still believe they can get Castro.

Hola.

The plan for Cuba's transition from
Stalinist rule to a free and open society.

To identify ways to hasten
the arrival of that day.

No matter what the dictator
intends or plans...

Thank you all.

'Cuba seems to have the same effect
on American administrations'

that the full moon
once had on werewolves.

You know,
we may not sprout hair and howl

but we behave in, in the same way,
just irrationally.

Whatever became
of Luis Posada Carriles?

The United States
could have sent him to join

other suspected terrorists
in Guantanamo Bay, but they didn't.

Posada was very publicly arrested
and escorted under armed guard.

But he wasn't charged with blowing up
planes or trying to murder Fidel Castro.

He was simply detained
for visa irregularities.

The American authorities
wouldn't let us visit Posada in jail

but his friends chat
to him almost daily.

- Hey, there. Hi, Enrique.
- Hey.

- Come on in.
- Thank you very much.

- Come right in.
- How are you doing?

- Fine.
- Good, good. Make yourselves at home.

- And how's Luis?
- Luis is fine, expecting your call.

OK.
Where have all his paintings gone?

We had a painting exhibition
and we sold 121 paintings.

It was very, very successful.

Almost like over $30,000 in paintings
sold in... over the weekend.

Posada was on good form

but he was perplexed
that the American government,

which he'd served so long had, if only
for a little while, put him behind bars.

I was very happy to hear him.
Yeah, he's kind of grown on us.

Yeah, he's quite a character.

We're looking forward
to having him back, hopefully soon.

Hopefully soon.
It would be a shame if he dies in jail.

But like he tried to say,
I mean the struggle

is going to continue with him
or without him.

So, because it's a just struggle

we're looking to do something
that is important

to what, 12 million people,
now? So...

638 plots to kill Castro,
and a few close shaves.

Now it looks like "The Beard"
can die a natural death.

'Castro is probably,
of all the heads of government,

'the one with the tightest security.'

When he flies,
he uses three airplanes

and you don't know
which one he's riding in.

'When he goes
to a foreign country to visit,

'he carries everything,
so nobody will try to poison his drinks.

'He takes his own food,
his own water, his own ice.'

He has a number of doubles,

one of which is his older brother,
Ramon, who looks very much like him,

'and they even have a wax dummy.

'In Cuba they sit in a car
and drive around town.'

He has at least 50 or 60 houses

that he resides in
and changes them constantly,

you know, and a Praetorian guard
of several hundred.

'With such tight security
it's very, very difficult

'to carry out a successful operation
against him.'

But, again,
we only have to be successful once.

But you haven't been.

It's all right, you know,
we only have to be successful once.